No More Secrets
by shiftingful
Summary: Ted misses the point and loses everything.


Ted sat across from Tracey on the train ride finally home. Across from her. Not next to her. She was three feet away. How he'd let that happen he would never find out. Instead of harassing her at close quarters, however, he just propped his feet up on either side of her slim hips, staring into her forehead until she looked up at him.

She didn't.

And refrained from doing so until a good hour into the ride, at which point her eyes were flat and uninterested. "Want anything?"

Ted scowled. He wanted _her_, but she would take no such answer. She got up and left.

When she came back he keened for her to sit next to him, but in no universe, alternate or otherwise, would Tracey Davis and Pansy Parkinson occupy the same space. He thought about sitting in her spot, but there were so many directions for that to go, none his way.

"Tracey," he said. Draco looked up from Pansy's other elbow, scowling. He'd sat here at the apparent promise of quiet. Ted leveled a stare at the blond boy until Draco deepened his scowl and gave up.

"Tracey," he said.

"What, Ted."

"What the hell is the matter with you?"

Tracey looked him in the eye for the second time. "I would say, 'If you don't now, I'm not gonna tell you,' but that's too juvenile, so I'll rephrase it. _Figure it out_." She returned to her boring book.

Ted slumped against the hard fake wood of the compartment, sighed, and dozed off with his cheek white against the window. She'd calm down. She had to.

"Ted! Up."

He jumped into consciousness and tripped. "What?"

Tracey was unloading her things economically and too quickly, dishing out glances so loaded with dismissive contempt as to rival a feline.

He lurched up from the seat, overcompensated, and almost knocked both of them over. She barraged him with silent abuse until he moved, but he'd gotten a whiff of her and he decided he could not let her go without a thorough goodbye.

"Tracey, I'm sorry."

She stopped abruptly, continued. "Do you by any chance have a clue what you're apologizing for?"

"Nope." He tried to sound more resigned than flippant about it, but apparently the difference wasn't big enough, because Tracey elbowed him in the stomach. "Would you like to tell me?" he wheezed.

"I'll give you three guesses."

"Um—"

"One." Her eyes were utterly unforgiving.

"I was an asshole in some form or fashion over along period of time?" Ted ventured.

"Two." Her voice was vicious too this time.

"I—"

"Three!" she snapped. She took a step towards him and snatched his wrist, yanking up his sleeve to expose the Dark Mark.

"Well, fuck, when'd you find out about that?"

A—tear?—fell to the floor as she thrust his arm away from her and picked up her trunk again, ready to storm out. He dropped his so he could beat her to the door, and stood in front of it with pleading, yearning, not-sorry eyes.

"Why, Ted?" she screamed in his face. "Why did you do that? And _why the fuck_ didn't you tell me?"

Ted's arms were half-raised to shield him from all sorts of possible consequences, but she was done. Tears were definitely sliding down her face. He wrapped his arms around her firmly, almost too much so, and tried to speak in a straight line. "I'm not sorry that I kept it from you, but I'm sorry that I ever did it." She started to struggle, launched into a verbal attack, but he cut her off. "My father died sixth year. You-Know—"

"Say his name," came the muffled command. He obeyed without a thought.

"Voldemort expected a successor. He began making visits. I was scared out of my fucking mind, Trace."

She growled inarticulately into his chest at his use of her nickname. It turned into the vague silhouette of sobbing and he held her tighter.

"I was convinced whatever I could do to keep me in good standing with him might put me in a position to save your life, when the war was over. I swear I thought he was going to win." A shaking pause. "I didn't do it because I believed in what he stood for. I did it because I believed in what an alliance with him could save."

Tracey extricated herself from his arms and stood back, ideally positioned to shout him down. "Are you saying," she asked, her voice scarlet velvet, "that this," she wrenched his wrist from his side, "is _my fault_?"

Ted almost cried. "Tracey, no! How could you say that." He reached for her again, this time to steady himself, but she resisted, stepped back. "It wasn't anybody's fault."

She slapped him full in the face. "Don't you dare say that. Whose fault was it?"

Her eyes dared him to say anything other than: "Voldemort's."

He reached for her again, and this time she let him frame her slippery face with his ugly hands. He brought their foreheads together, looked her in the eyes. "I'm sorry, Tracey."

She grasped Ted's wrists and returned them to their owner. "You realize you've ruined everything."

Ted sagged against the doorframe. "Yes."

"No, I mean everything. I won't ever trust you again." She took a step back. "Do you understand?"

"No, but I'm sorry for it all," he moaned. He yanked at his hair. "I didn't have a bloody choice, Tracey! Does that make no difference at all?"

She looked like she was going to slap him again. "You _chose_ not to tell me a damn thing. That was your _choice_," she snarled. She slipped around him out the door, somehow, with all her things, and was gone, with only a resounding "Goodbye" dropped in the corridor behind her.


End file.
